With Jeff Pearlman and Paul Hoynes discussing their personal displeasure with a couple of Hall of Fame candidates, Craig Calcaterra asks, “Why should we care if a ballplayer is mean or if he’s ‘a punk?’” What these opinions show, however, is why the press wants to keep the vote for the Hall of Fame.
Players and press are in a symbiotic relationship. The press can help build a fan base for a player, or they can knock him down. In turn, the press needs players to speak with them so they can write more interesting accounts of the games and teams they cover. That isn’t always good enough, however, to keep the relationship civil. For the greats, like Barry Bonds and Pedro Martinez, their heroics build the fan base. So the press holds the Hall of Fame vote over them. It doesn’t really matter to the greats, but to a player on the edge it can made all the difference.
*snicker* Having been repudiated on the subject of Biggio, Pearlman is moving on to a target where his position has a better shot of prevailing, at least for the short to medium run.
There’s a funny comment after the Calcaterra piece from someone who claims that he and a friend were on Twitter discussing a Pearlman hit piece on Randy Johnson’s retirement. Pearlman allegedly popped up on the discussion at 3 AM local time less than a day later to claim he’d never said anything bad about the Big Unit–whereupon the commenter posted the link to the article in question:
http://www.jeffpearlman.com/the-big-unit-bids-farewell/
Apparently, everyone’s favorite PED McCarthyite is a weeee bit thin-skinned about being called out on his crap.